Sunday June 21

A few sunny intervals, but mostly cloudy with a moderate westerly breeze. Not very auspicious, or so I thought.

I whiled away time waiting for Dave photographing grasses in the hope of identifying them later; it could be a lot later. A Starling fed in the horse paddock, and the reverend Reed Warbler stuck to its guns by failing to sing. Instead, a Sedge Warbler belted out its song from the reedbed.

Once Dave arrived we proceeded towards the pool. As we walked along the hedge line 100 metres short of our destination, a loose flock of finches flew noisily from the other end of the hedge. It took a couple of seconds before the penny dropped. I yelled "Crossbills" as their "kyip kyip" calls became clearer as they flew past us. We saw them well enough to see their crossed bills as they flew by and away to the south. Nine of them in total. To put the record into context, these were the first Crossbills I have seen here for four years. There is another record from about two years ago, involving a pair seen by Matt Willmott.

I had no chance at all of getting a record shot (not even of the standard of my Common Tern effort). After congratulating ourselves on our good fortune we headed onwards to the pool where, on the longest day of the year, we saw more evidence of the turn of the year. The first returning Green Sandpiper called and then appeared in flight. We briefly relocated it at the edge of the pool before it headed towards the Flashes.

The Green Sandpiper on the flashes

Also at the flashes were two Little Ringed Plovers, a Redshank, and a Little Owl. On the walk back we spent time looking at insects.

Azure Damselfly

Blue-tailed Damselfly

Painted Lady

However, we hadn't entirely given up on birds. The sky was full of Swifts, our highest count being 46. We also saw a Hobby, and two Sparrowhawks. A Skylark showed well as it collected grubs for its fledglings.

Skylark

All in all an excellent start to autumn!